The Spotlight

Chapter Two

TWO

I wake up choking.   I can’t move my arms or legs or talk because a tube is down my throat and my hands are tied to the sides of this bed I’m in, this bed that is not the bus and it’s not my bedroom at home and…

A nurse appears really close to my face.  It’s pretty easy to figure out you’re in a hospital when you see a nurse.   “Shhhhhhh”.  I’m still coughing and choking.  Then it starts to go away.  Out of the corner of my eye I see her squeezing a tube on a machine.  The world gets much more chill, easier to close my…

“Don’t worry, you’ll be able to sing again.”

Now I’m waking up with no tube down my throat.  It’s tough to say what hurts the most. 

I look over and see Alan, my manager, with a guy next to him.  Alan in his fifties, eats at expensive restaurants and doesn’t exercise.  His hair is dyed black and it’s possible that his eyebrows are too.  He’s been my manager for the past five years, for the music part.   I hardly ever see him because he has a “team” who talk to me. The last time I saw him was at the beginning of the this tour, which is fine by me because I don’t really like him. 

My eyes are blurry so I try to figure out who the man next to him is.  He’s younger than Alan but looks more worried,  sad-worried.  He has his hands in his pockets and it looks like he’s afraid of seeing me.  He has blue eyes just like me.  Oh.  All of a sudden I get it.  I haven’t seen or talked to him in ten years.    

“Hi Max”, my Father says.

“Hi kid”, says Alan.

I look at my father again, as he realizes that I know who he is, how I can barely remember him.  And about what I do remember about him, and what my mom has told me since we he left.   About how he was out of fucking control, about how he was a fucking drunk.  About how she had to take control, especially now that everything with my career  was going so well.

Why is he here? Why all of a sudden does he get the RIGHT to be here?  Why can he just show up and be the hero in my hospital room in Boston and…

Then I think about Mom and it clicks.  

It’s awful to figure it out this way.  Whenever bad news gets delivered in the movies, the person has a minute of not knowing - this puzzled look - then they start bawling.   It’s not like that in real life, at least not right now.   They don’t have time to even tell me before I figure it out.

Cammie isn’t here.  My mom isn’t here.  Becka isn’t here.  They’re all in as bad as shape as I am or they’re not here at all. 

He has grey hair on the sides now.  I can see the old him in my head a little bit, teaching me how to ride my bike and playing Army Men.  Now he looks like a pilot or someone you’d really trust to be good at their job, because who could be that old and not fly the plane perfectly?  He looks so much stronger than I remember him, like he could easily pick me up and carry me out of this hospital.

I can’t really talk because when you have a tube like that in your throat for three days, it’s almost like your throat muscles forget how to work.  It takes me a minute to get out two words. 

“Go away.” 

It hits my father like he’s been punched in the gut and it gives me a little thrill.  Imagine that, a thrill through all of this pain.  Screw him.  He deserves to feel even more pain that I’m feeling for what he did to us. He walks into the hall.  

A doctor has shown up in the room and I remember that I am in a hospital because I am hurt.  There are things in my nose and all kinds of machines that sound like Darth Vader.  I can’t move anything on my body, like I’m being held down.   The doctor is with another woman, who carries a clipboard. 

“How are you feeling Max?” asks the doctor. 

I’m great. Just like being at Disneyland. Except I’m full of tubes and can’t move. And nobody is saying it but I think my mother and my girlfriend and my best friend are dead.  

I try to talk again but it’s just too hard.  The doctor waves me down.  Easy does it. 

“It’s going to take a few days, but you’ll be able to talk fine. You’re going to have to work on getting that singing voice back, but you should be good there too.“ He looks up at Alan and I can tell they’ve talked a lot about my voice.  Figures.  “You’re at Boston Memorial Hospital.  I am going to explain to you what’s happened to your body now, Max.  The accident…”

The world turning over and over.  Cammie screaming and trying to grab for me.  The big mirror over our heads, the one we look at when we’re falling asleep, breaking into a million pieces.  Mom!  Mom?  MOM!

“…has caused damage to your body but you’re incredibly lucky, Max…”

I’m incredibly lucky. I’m incredibly lucky.  I’m incredibly lucky.

“…and you’re going to be fine.  Your lung was punctured and you had enough other things going on that we put you in what’s called a ‘medically induced coma’, which means we put you to sleep so your body could get better.”

How long? How long? This feels like Avatar.

Alan jumps in.  “You’ve been out for a few days.  Your body has responded really well to everything the doctors here have done to help you.  Everything is healing.  The biggest thing you’re going to face is all of the damage to your leg. But don’t worry, you’re going to be able to walk fine.  And dance. “

“It’s been broken in many places, but we’re going to get you back into rock star shape“,  the doctor echoes. 

Then the woman holding a clipboard half-sits on my bed and touches my hand.  I look at Alan and he is turning his head.   Oh, it’s going to happen now.  

She looks me right in the eye. “Max”, she says, “My name is Sheila, and I’m counseler here at the hospital.  You can talk to me about anything.  But right now I have to tell you about what happened in the accident.”

I’m incredibly lucky.  I’m incredibly lucky.

“Your mom, Cammie and your tour manager Becka...” she stops here, like even though she must do this all the time, she isn’t sure how to say it.  “They’ve passed, Max.   Your mom and Cammie were gone before the first responders arrived.  Max, they did not feel anything, no pain. “

It’s like there is some shimmer of hope.  She didn’t anything about Becka right away.  Maybe they were wrong. I somehow manage to force the air through my vocal cords and say a word.  “Becka.” 

Sheila makes her lips really small. “She fought so hard Max.  She was so strong for you.  But I’m sorry Max, Becka didn’t make it.”  She stops, like she knows what I’m thinking, that I have to know when. “Yesterday”.

They’re talking but I can’t understand anything now.  Swirling.  All hitting me.  Oh they’ve turned up the dope too, they must have done that when she was telling me.   Only I don’t want to sleep.  

I am really mad and really confused and afraid that they are going to put me in another medically induced coma. 

“Let me out of this fucking bed!” I gargle.  I know that I am hurting myself more but I don’t care.  I thrash and try to scream as I feel myself getting blurry.  Out of nowhere my father's’s hands are on my shoulders as my body calms down because of the drugs, but my eyes are still seething.  I am looking at him with every molecule of hate that my body has in it right now.

“It’s going to be OK Max,” he says.

I’m so incredibly lucky.